Three men convicted of state hunting violations in Nevada now face trial on federal charges stemming from a poaching ring that saw untold numbers of deer, antelope, birds and other wildlife killed illegally across Nevada, game officials said on Monday.

 

Authorities uncovered the poaching ring after one of the defendants posted a photograph on Facebook of two deer he shot and killed out of season last June, said the Nevada Wildlife Department who led investigation of the case.

 

The ensuing probe found that Adrian Acevedo-Hernandez, 36, Jose Luis Montufar-Canales, 31, and J. Nemias Reyes Marin, 31, had been illegally killing and butchering animals across the state and bragging about the kills online since early 2013.

 

The men, described as “serial wildlife killers,” were convicted in a state court of misdemeanor hunting violations earlier this year. In July they were indicted by a federal grand jury in Las Vegas on felony firearms offenses and criminal charges under the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

 

The three men, who resided in Las Vegas but are suspected of having entered the United States illegally, remain in federal custody awaiting trial.

 

Search warrants executed at a residence occupied by one of the men uncovered large caches of deer meat, deer parts, butchering tools, weapons and ammunition. The evidence there led investigators to broaden their probe to unsolved poaching cases that stretched from Nevada’s northern border with Idaho to its southeastern intersection with Arizona.

 

The men were engaged in an extreme version of what conservation officers call “thrill kills,” indiscriminate killing of wildlife for excitement rather than for food.

 

Nevada game wardens will never be able to fully tally all the wildlife illegally killed by the poaching ring, said a spokesman for the state wildlife agency.